On Foot-marks of' Animals on Rocks. 179 



furnish new proofs of the advantages presented in the majority 

 of cases, by the substitution of an operation which is simple, 

 easy, and free from great dangers, for another which is severe, 

 alarming, and painful, and which, until the present time, consti- 

 tuted the only relief which the art afforded. 



On Foot-marks of Animals in Rocks. 



Supposed foot-marks of animals in rocks have been mentioned 

 by authors from an early period. Appearances of this kind 

 have been noticed in Ayrshire and Dumfriesshire in Scotland, 

 and in England, by Mr Allies ; and Baron Humboldt and Pro- 

 fessor Link have lately published the following observations on 

 foot-marks of unknown animals in the variegated sandstone of 

 Hildburghausen. 



Humboldt 07i Footmarks of Animals in New Red Sand- 

 stone, — After a long absence, I venture to request the atten- 

 tion of the Academy for a few moments to a geological fact, 

 which is the more curious, inasmuch as it is connected with 

 the great question of the epoch of the first appearance of the 

 Mammiferae upon the surface of our planet. It is now more 

 than a year since, in a new red sandstone formation (bunte 

 sandstein), between the village of Hisberg and the town of Hild- 

 burghausen, at the back of Thuringer Wald, the foot-marks of 

 some great plantegrade animals were discovered, as having pass- 

 ed across the surface of the rock while yet in a soft state. That 

 distinguished naturalist M. Sickler, has had the merit of first 

 bringing these foot-marks into notice, in a letter which he ad- 

 dressed to M. Blumenbach. There can be no doubt that this 

 letter is by this time well known in France ; and it represents 

 the drawings of the imprints of the feet of some quadrupeds, re- 

 garded as antediluvian. This drawing has been a second time 

 engraved in the Archiv fiir Naturgeschichte of M. Wiegman 

 (No. i. J). 127), the author of the beautiful Description of the 

 Saurians of Mexico. The small size, and other imperfections, 

 of M. Sickler's engraving, gave origin to many doubts concern- 

 ing them ; many geologists thinking that the forms of accidental 



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